Field note · 2 April 2026
Swing marks that leave the chart readable
The desk marks structure before it marks anything else, and it stops when the sheet cannot be read from the door.
A chart becomes useless at the moment every wick has a line. Students often reach that moment in the first ten minutes and then ask why the sitting feels stuck. The sheet is stuck because there is nowhere left for the eye to rest. The order below is the one Park Minjae uses on Wednesday.
Structure before levels
On the first pass, mark only swing highs and swing lows. Use one pencil. A swing high, for this desk, is a bar whose high is above the bars on either side of it, on the bar size you chose before you sat down. Do not promote a wick inside a tight cluster just because it looks sharp.
If two swings sit so close that the marks touch, keep the one that led to a close beyond it and erase the other. You can always put the erased one back. You cannot read a page that kept both out of politeness.
One level the session used
The second pass adds a single level that the session actually traded against. Prior day high, the edge of a multi-day range, the opening price if price kept returning to it. One. If you can defend two levels, you are on a second sheet, not a denser first sheet.
Name the level in the margin with a short word you already use in the journal. The margin note is how a later review matches the pencil to the page. Without it, the line is just graphite.
Stop while the bars are still visible
Hold the sheet at arm's length. If you cannot tell the swing from the decoration, trace the keepers onto a fresh sheet and leave the crowded one in the folder as a draft. The room has spare paper for this. Starting again is part of the hour, not a failure of it.
Indicators, if you use them at your own screen, stay off this pack. The hour is for structure and one level. Anything else can be discussed after the sheet is readable, and usually it does not need to be drawn.
Why pencil
Ink makes students loyal to their first guess. Pencil lets a wrong swing leave the page without a scar. The draughtsman's habit Minjae brought to the room is simple: a mark you cannot bear to erase is a mark you have not looked at twice.